Cassandra

by Hilary Bailey

  Paris had eventually been despatched to make a hasty welcome, while Advenor would have been unhappily selecting some horses as a gift, the palace being made ready, waggons sent out to the farms for supplies, and my parents preparing themselves to greet the unwelcome guests. Behind Paris would follow a couple of chariots, harnessed up in haste, to convey the Greeks to Troy.

  Helenus and I were silent. The prospect of seeing the disembarkation had been exciting, but now that we found ourselves near the harbour, we both dreaded seeing the figures from our nightmares, and the thought was sobering.

  ‘How long will they stay?’ I asked.

  ‘Weeks, I suppose,’ said Paris. ‘We don’t know the reason for the visit. They will want something – they usually do.’

  A woman with a basket on her back turned when one of the horses brushed the basket, toppling out some dried figs. When she saw Paris, she smiled. The woman she was with, her sister perhaps, also smiled and bent to pick up the figs and put them back in the basket. The child she had by the hand grinned at my brother. All down the route people told each other, ‘The prince’s chariot is coming.’ Carts and laden men and women moved off the narrow road to let us through. Graceful, smiling, the sunshine seeming to make his face gleam, Paris could do no wrong. Finally, with the ships in sight, we had a clear pathway to the harbour. Paris raised his whip, planning to arrive with our fine horses galloping and panting, to make a show. He said, ‘Jump out!’ and as we both tumbled off the side into the crowd he brought down the whip and dashed off, stones flying up from under the black horses’ hooves.

  I didn’t see what happened after that. I lost Helenus immediately and, wedged between a big woman with strings of onions all over her and three large men from the mountains, with two small children immediately in front of me and a crowd behind, I had a job to keep my feet as the travellers all hastened forward to try and get a glimpse of the arrival of Paris and the descent of the Greeks from their ships. Later there were many accounts of the event, but none from Paris. I don’t think he remembered much.

  It seems he reached the harbour at a gallop, turned the chariot sharply at the entrance, sped the horses over the paving of the dock and pulled up short, opposite the gangplank of the largest ship, which had a big golden bird at its prow. The horses shuddered, then stopped tidily on their polished hooves, making a fine sight. They were unused to such brusque treatment, but Paris, obviously dragged from his bed to produce a respectable display at short notice, while the king and queen prepared an official welcome, was doing his best. He stood upright in his chariot waiting.

  The Greek leaders, appearing on deck as if from nowhere, began to come down the gangplank. The crowd stood silent as two tall men, both in red, one with bright red hair, the other blond, both heads circled with gold, walked slowly down to the dock. Behind them, with two women servants, came a tall woman with golden hair, elaborately dressed in plaits and curls, wearing a white tunic of some fine wool which reached to her knees. She wore golden sandals, a gold circlet, lost in the colour of her hair, and a small necklace of dark, blue stones. ‘The exact colour of her eyes,’ Adosha told me afterwards. (Adosha had somehow arrived before us, and was to the front of the crowd.) ‘And of Paris’ eyes,’ I said.

  The Carians were, legend has it, the original people of Troy. They are a small, dark people, fine-boned, with brown eyes. But Troy is a port, and we have in us the blood of the Phoenicians, Hittites and even the Greeks themselves. Thus it was that in my own family men like Hector could be so mighty, Paris have eyes of clearest blue, while Helenus and I, as if representing the original Trojans, when the city was a fishing hamlet and the port just a beach with a few boats drawn up, were brown-skinned, brown-eyed and showed signs we would always be smaller in stature than the others.

  As the two kings touched land Paris leaped from the chariot and advanced quickly, arms outstretched. It must have been at this point that he properly noticed the woman as she followed the two men down. He and she looked at each other. By this stage Adosha, panting in her best clothes, had got nearly to the front of the crowd, telling everyone loudly she was looking for the king and queen’s children, which she was not. As she elbowed the last person aside she caught sight of the woman on the gangplank just as she, seemingly, noticed Paris for the first time. Adosha said that suddenly hers was the face of a girl looking at her first lover just after they had made love in some wood or grove. Impossible, said Adosha, to describe the softness of her face, or the hunger, or the look of that very red, gently parted mouth. She looked at Paris, said Adosha, as if she and he had been in bed all night and she never wanted to get up. She said she couldn’t see Paris as his back was to her, but what she noticed was that he had stopped a few paces from the two Greek kings, with his arms still outstretched, as if he’d been turned to stone. It looked as if the taller of the two, the fair-haired one, Agamemnon, had been forced to step forward and grasp his outstretched arms just to get his attention. The redheaded king, behind, looked grim behind his smile. To them it must have seemed as if Paris were trying to play the great king, waiting to be approached, rather than approaching. The touch of the man, said Adosha, seemed to bring Paris to himself.

  There was an exchange of remarks, unheard by the crowd, there were smiles, clasping of arms and larger-than-life gestures as is customary on such public occasions. The woman had by then come down on to the dock with her servants and had her expression more under control, which, as Adosha said, was a blessing, since there can have been few in the crowd who hadn’t read her countenance and seen what it was saying. By that time anyway, most people were looking at the two heroes and taking in the details of their entourage, now disembarking. There were five nobles among them. White-haired and leaning on a staff was their priest and adviser, Calchas. There were about forty soldiers in full kit, with bright helmets, breastplates and swords. They had even brought ten large horses. This, of course, was why there were two ships, but it was an over-large, over-military display for a simple diplomatic visit between allies.

  Agamemnon and Paris stood at the front of the chariot, Paris holding the reins. Behind stood Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus, King of Sparta – and Helen. The woman Adosha had pushed aside muttered, ‘She’s married to the red-headed brother, it seems – but you can see which man she wants.’ Adosha told her, ‘And he’s no Greek.’ There was a laugh from those around them, Adosha said. Our Trojan women, of course, lived more freely than the Greeks. Here among the Greeks, as I have learned in Thessaly, the rule is that anything un-Greek which doesn’t move is seized or burned, anything edible is eaten and anything human, which is un-Greek, is killed or enslaved. This rule applies to all women, Greek or not. For my own safety I have had to live as a Greek woman. It is like living in chains.

  Meanwhile Paris, affected as he probably was by the woman standing behind him, whipped up the horses. They left the harbour and drove up the long road to the city. Two additional chariots for the other Greeks had by then arrived. Paris passed me, standing in the chariot with the reins in his hands, looking handsome as the young god himself. But there was something on his face which reminded me of Hecate’s priests when they have drunk sacred wine and can dance all night, or slash themselves with knives to feed their blood to the fields and never seem to feel fatigue or pain. He was entranced. And there were the two fierce kings, both, though young, with identical lines carved from nose to chin and across their brows, and there Helen, Menelaus’ wife, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, perhaps the most beautiful woman anyone has ever seen. She silenced the crowd. Those who saw her pass could do nothing but look. Moments after the chariot had gone by, people started talking. ‘It isn’t human,’ said a man. ‘I’d murder to have her – I know I would. It isn’t human.’ Most of the men seeing Helen must have thought when they saw her, only of having her – then, of how they never would. Women, I think, were beyond envy for that woman seemed of a different kind. No one in our world looked like that. No one ever could. She was lik
e a creature from the sun.

  When they had gone, half the light seemed to have gone with them. I felt cold and tired, as a child will who has sprung out of bed early and run a mile or so, on an almost empty stomach. While those with something to sell remained, I joined the others who had just come for the spectacle and began to walk back to the city, behind the contingent of Greek soldiers marching fast in a double column. Naughty children mimicked their heavy, armour-laden tread. Helenus ran up after me, offering me half a smoked fish and a piece of bread he had come by.

  ‘Helen,’ he said. ‘That’s the queen’s name.’

  ‘You told me that name,’ said I.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘I think I remember.’

  Had he heard the name somewhere once and then forgotten it? It wouldn’t be very surprising, for her beauty was a legend and so was her history. Everyone, everywhere, even then, spoke of Helen. This kind of foreseeing is often not pure magic, just memory and intelligence working too fast for the thinking brain, which goes plodding on, step by painful step, to follow.

  ‘The other king’s married to Helen’s sister,’ he reported. ‘She’s beautiful, but not as beautiful as Helen.’

  Adosha caught up with us now. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘such beautiful kings – did you see the sun glinting on their gold circlets and that beautiful woman’s hair, brighter than gold itself? A goddess, she must be. We’ll never see a sight like that again.’

  ‘No,’ Helenus and I found ourselves saying together. Helenus then said, ‘Will you take us to the oracle today, Adosha?’

  She was astonished. ‘The oracle? Today? You both want to see the oracle? And today, of all days?’

  ‘We must,’ I told her.

  She looked at me angrily. ‘You fear the oracle. Don’t you want to stay in the palace today and see the kings and hear their discussions? What about the banquet? If you must see the oracle, wait till the kings have gone.’

  ‘Today,’ I said firmly. I knew Adosha herself wanted to stay in Troy and see what was going on and hear all the gossip. She would have to be made to go.

  ‘They’ll expect you to be there,’ she told me.

  This seemed hardly true. In the bustle of the kings’ unexpected arrival and the attempt to understand why they had come, no one would notice our absence.

  ‘We’ve got to visit the oracle, though we don’t want to,’ I said, ‘and you have to come with us.’

  She began to see we were serious and her face changed. She shivered. ‘If we must,’ she said.

  We had stopped on the road, where it curved round to meet the city gate. People walked round us. Helenus was very pale and I expect I was, too. In the great hall my mother would be in her blue robe, her hair plaited on her head beneath the great gold headdress she had brought with her at her marriage. My father would wear his huge embroidered coat. His grey-black hair and beard would be curled. All the famous and dignified men and women of Troy would be greeting the guests, waggons would be drawn up outside the doors and carcasses of sheep and goats and heaps of loaves from the baker would be unloading. The servants would be hauling great jars of wine towards the hall. There would be music. But Helenus and I had to go up the frightening hill, past the black altar, to see the oracle.

  Three

  Thessaly

  It is full autumn here now. The last leaves are fluttering about the yard as I sit, wrapped in my cloak, writing. The cistern and the well have to be cleared of leaves daily. All the crops are in. Olives are standing in big jars in the storehouse, apples, apricots and plums are drying on their racks, the wine is pressed and I can hear the olive press thudding down on the last of the crop. Next week we begin slaughtering the beasts we will not be able to feed during the winter. The smokehouse fire is already lit and the barrels are filled with salt. I shall be driven indoors at last both by the cold and by the bellowing of cows, rams and ewes in the yard as they are slaughtered. Years ago, when there were many to feed and not enough servants to do all the work, I used to help with this myself, holding the animals as the big knife was pulled across their throats, but always, as I helped to hold down the struggling beasts, I had to push away the thought of the knives thudding through cloth to strike flesh, always heard, in the crying and bleating, human cries, calling ‘Treachery! Revenge! Blood for blood!’ Nevertheless, I held the animals as they died – twenty people had to get through the winter with full stomachs. Having seen so much death, I wanted all the more to preserve life. Those who saw what I saw – there are some of us left – will never be able to forget. Our minds are stained with memory nothing could wash away. We will never be able to say, ‘There it is, fresh and good as new. You’d never suspect it had ever had a mark on it.’

  But the children are grown and healthy and my patient husband beyond harm or help now. (Where is he? Stalking gloomily among the shades of the Greeks or sitting with the Mother in her pleasant pastures?) And now the venerable Greek mother and widow can rise early, despatch the day’s business and sit down at the bench to tell her story. Naomi makes faces when she sees me dragging the old Arabian cushion from the house to lay on the stone bench, in preparation for hours of sitting. That long cushion, with the strange birds woven into it in red and green, used to lie in front of our fire in winter. All the children wanted it. ‘I want to sit on the bird.’ ‘No – I do,’ they’d cry in their high voices. My husband would always say the three boys, Diomed, the oldest, Dryas and Phaon, should have it and the girls should go on carding their wool, and winding it on to spindles; then, as they grew older, should take their places at the loom. It galled me to see Penelope and Iris, granddaughters of Priam and Hecuba of Troy, working at the loom in the chill while their brothers sat playing at knucklebones and fondling the dog in front of the fire. But I could hardly protest and boast about my children’s birth, unless I wanted to die, see my oldest son killed and make sure my daughters would never marry.

  What would the claim mean, anyway, where all Trojans are slaves? Only my brother Helenus is free, many miles away across the mountains, the Epirus, a wild place where the Greeks, rulers of this land, have little sway. That place is still under the moral protection of the great Achilles, who would not allow Helenus or his wife to be troubled. I have seen others of my countrymen often enough over the years, on the few occasions when I have left my home. They are pulling ploughs and hauling water, they are being beaten and used until they die. They are often easy to recognise, being smaller-boned than Greeks with small, high noses, high cheekbones and big, slightly slanting eyes. Only three years ago I bought some sheep from Vanno, Adosha’s brother, at the annual fair. I knew him by the burn on his cheek he got when she pushed him on to a brazier when he was two years old. Vanno was well dressed and healthy for a slave, but his eyes were dull and turned to the ground when he spoke to me and I had no doubt his back was scarred with beatings. It takes many floggings and tyings up to take the light from the captive’s eyes like that. He didn’t recognise me. Why should he have? His eyes never met mine anyway, and I doubt if he could have recognised in the slackened body of a prosperous Greek landowner’s wife the Trojan princess he last saw twenty years before. And if he had looked me straight in the face he would have seen eyes as dull, almost, as his own, blanked by time and the effort to put on a suitable face for this public appearance. Not hard to keep your eyes down and timid when you are afraid, as I was, in the market-crush of confident Greeks.

  Vanno and I had last met at the gates of Troy when he was fourteen, I sixteen. He stood in a great group of men and boys, wearing armour which was too big for him. The first battle of the war was about to begin. Adosha was clinging to him, trying to wrestle him away, saying he was too young and inexperienced to fight; why didn’t he steal away home? She, his older sister, ought to have had some influence with him, but he wouldn’t listen. So Vanno went. Later she saw Vanno fall, hit by an arrow, and then disappear under chariot wheels in the mêlée of fighting men and rearing hors
es. He must have survived and been taken back to a Greek ship.

  I couldn’t tell him who I was. He might have been happy to know I was alive, but twenty years of bullyings and beatings can turn a man into a traitor, for gain or to get off a punishment, or even, the greatest trap of all, can make a man who believes his enslaver is his superior. He could have betrayed me to get a pat from his master.

  Soon, none of this will matter. Each day I see more clearly what will happen. The crisis will come soon and the Greek nations will not survive.

  Naomi has been telling me off. ‘The servants are talking about what you’re doing. They’ll tell others. They may think you’re making spells against them. We can’t afford curious people. We’ve hidden successfully for twenty years. Why not let us go peacefully into old age?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

  ‘Why? Do you think you’re going to die? You look healthy to me. Don’t try to foresee your own death – it may be beyond your powers. Anyway, even if you die, I may not. Think of that.’